• The five leading causes of death in the US were; pneumonia and influenza, TB, diarrhea, heart disease and stroke.
• The American flag had only forty-five stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Alaska and Hawaii hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.
• The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was 301.
• Crossword puzzles, canned beer and iced teas had not yet been invented.
• There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.
• Two of ten US adults couldn’t read or write. Less than 6% of all Americans had graduated from High School.
• Marijuana, heroin and morphine were all available over the counter at the corner drugstore. According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.” (Shocking!)
• Eighteen percent of US households had at least one full-time servant or domestic.
• There were only 230 reported murders in the entire United States.  

And we had this forwarded to us from someone else who did the typing and sent it to us in a matter of seconds. Try to imagine what it may be like in another one hundred years…It may boggle your mind too!!!  

            And where was the air transport business back then? Since the Wright Brothers first successful powered flight became history only a couple of months earlier, there were no airlines in 1904, but a mere twenty-two years later, Northwest Airways came into being.  

            That sort of set us to wondering what was going on in the way of air transport after the first fifty years. A check in some old Official Airline Guides (OAG) from the early 1950’s showed some household company names like Pan American, American Overseas, Eastern, TWA, Western, National, Braniff and some lesser known names such as Colonial, Chicago & Southern, Capital Mid-Continent and Northeast. And there were references to things like “The Great Silver Fleet, Clippers and Flagships. Stratocruisers, Constellations and Viscounts were the elite of the fleets and speed records were being established somewhere almost daily.

            How about our own family tree? Back then there were a number of Regional Airlines operating in areas synonymous with their names. Southwest, but soon to become Pacific Airlines. Zimmerly Airways, had become Empire Airlines, and was now part of West Coast Airlines. Bonanza was also flying in the southwest. Wisconsin Central changed its name to North Central Airlines; both names appropriate for their service area. Southern Airways flew in the southeast. Air West, Hughes and Republic were names that would surface at later dates. Back then, the use of Orient in the Northwest Airlines name, the Chinese Gong and Buster Keaton were just things on the drawing board.